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Denis - The COVID info guy - (deniscovidinfoguy@aus.social)'s status on Friday, 11-Oct-2024 15:03:18 JST Denis - The COVID info guy -

🇳🇿NZ: The highly transmissible COVID-19 sub-variant, XEC has arrived in New Zealand.
"Epidemiologist Michael Baker, a Wellington-based Professor at the University of Otago, said a clear strategy is needed to reduce the impact of XEC."
Source: https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/concern-covid-sub-variant-found-nz
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In conversation about 4 months ago from aus.social permalink
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1. The highly transmissible Covid-19 sub-variant, XEC has arrived in New Zealand, with one epidemiologist concerned about an outbreak of the new strain. This strain is a mix of two previous Omicron subvariants. A recombinant variant is created when a person is infected with two strains of a virus that then reproduce, resulting in a different strain. ESR has detected a number of cases of the new strain in clinical samples. Epidemiologist Michael Baker, a Wellington-based Professor at the University of Otago, said a clear strategy is needed to reduce the impact of XEC. It has been reported in about 30 other countries, including Australia. Prof Paul Griffin, from the University of Queensland, told RNZ's Checkpoint programme today XEC seemed to be more infectious than other subvariants. Although it did not seem to be more severe, Griffin said, it did seem to have "the concerning hallmarks of a subvariant." "In many parts of the world it's predicted it'll be dominant, perhaps even by the middle of this month." People needed to maintain a certain level of readiness and mitigating strategies, he said. "At the moment, I think one of our biggest challenges is actually complacency. "The fact that we've got a new subvariant that's looking more infectious than taking over in many parts of the world, it should be a reminder that we need to keep up some of those basic strategies like vaccination, antivirals and simple measures to reduce getting infected and onward transmission."
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